Practically unknown in the Western world, al-Kindi has an honoured
place in the Islamic world as the philosopher of the Arabs. Today he might be
viewed as a bridge between Greek philosophers and Islamic philosophy. Part of the
brilliant ninth-century Abbasid court at Baghdad, composed of literati of all types,
he served as tutor for the caliphs son. He gained insights into the thought of Greek
philosophers, especially Aristotle, through the translation movement; although he did not
make translations himself, he corrected them and used them advantageously in his own
thought.

Al-Kindi is notable for his work on philosophical terminology and for
developing a vocabulary for philosophical thought in Arabic, although his ideas were
superseded by Ibn Sina in the eleventh century. The debate about the allowability of
philosophy in terms of orthodox Islam also began with al-Kindi, a battle that is usually
considered to have been won for religion by al-Ghazali. Like other innovators, his ideas
may no longer appear revolutionary, but in his own day, to push for the supremacy of
reason and for the importance of a foreign science  philosophy  as
opposed to an Arab science  grammar, Quranic studies  was
quite astonishing. When the Khalif al-Mutawwakil came to power and sought to restore
traditionalism, al-Kindi suffered a reversal of fortunes.

Logic and translation

Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi was an ethnic Arab (died in
Baghdad between AH 25260/AD 86673), with an illustrious lineage going back to
such near-mythic Arabian families as Qays. Al-Kindi was known as the philosopher of
the Arabs in contrast to the later Islamic philosophers who, though Muslim, were not
Arabs and often learned Arabic as a second language. The early bio-bibliographers gave his
ancestry and a long list of works, many of which are no longer extant, but his personal
life remains unknown. Although he is remembered for introducing philosophy to the
Abbasid court, his skills covered many fields including medicine, mathematics,
music, astrology and optics. He also served as tutor to the son of the Khalif
al-Mutasim. Al-Qifti, one of the medieval Islamic bio-bibliographers, pointedly
asserted that al-Kindi was skilled in the arts of the Greeks, the Persians and the Hindus.

Al-Kindi used early, Arabic-language translations of Greek philosophy,
which enabled him to add part of the Hellenistic tradition to his programme. The founding
of the bayt al-hikma (house of wisdom), for the large-scale translation of documents from
Greek, in the early ninth century meant both that the foreign sciences were
available wholesale to Arabophone scholars and that there was serious interest in the
knowledge they contained. Al-Kindi was occasionally credited (in the title inscription)
with correcting the translation, but it is generally accepted that he did not read Greek
himself. The pursuit of foreign sciences was also politically acceptable at
this juncture, which ceased to be the case later. A study of his terminology shows that
al-Kindi was aware of particular terms used in Hellenistic philosophy, and of which Arabic
word best expressed the same idea.

Al-Kindi may be thought of as a stage-setter for philosophy in the
Islamic world, laying out terms qua terms and redirecting the metaphysical concerns
suggested by the mutakallimun (theologians) from the realm of religion to that of
philosophy. His lack of interest in religious argument can be seen in the topics on which
he wrote. These topics were ontological, but he generally refrained from eschatological
discussions on topics such as the resurrection, the last day and the last judgment. Even
in his ethical treatise he dealt with the disciplined life in which a person might find
interior serenity in their current life, rather than an emphasis on reward in the
hereafter. Scholars have sometimes thought of al-Kindi as a Mutazili sympathizer,
but this has not been proved; he appears rather to coexist with the worldview of orthodox
Islam.

Al-Kindis work on definition is Fi Hudud al-Ashya
Wa-Rusumiha (On the Definitions of Things and their Descriptions). Through the terms
he chose to define  finitude, creation, the first cause  we can see where the
constructs of Islamic philosophy diverged from their Greek predecessors. In the eleventh
century the Kitab al-hudud (Book of Definitions) of Ibn Sina replaced
al-Kindis work; this was considerably more advanced, both in its definitions and in
its organization of the world into a concise ontological schema.

Metaphysics

Al-Kindis best known treatise is the metaphysical study, Fi
al-Falsafa al-Ula (On First Philosophy). Aristotelian influence can be seen in certain
elements, such as the four causes. However he is Aristotelian only up to a point. The
point of divergence is reached over the question of the origin of the world. Aristotle
teaches the eternity of the world; Al-Kindi propounds creation ex nihilo. The later
philosophers, such as al-Farabi, are usually considered to understand Aristotle more
accurately; they had the advantage of better translations and a greater number of works.
In Fi al-Falsafa al-Ula, al-Kindi described the first philosophy, which is also the
most noble and highest philosophy, as the knowledge of the first truth, including the
cause of every truth (the first cause). The first cause is prior in time because it is the
cause of time. By the study of philosophy, people will learn the knowledge of things in
reality, and through this the knowledge of the divinity of God and his unity. They will
also learn human virtue. Throughout many of his treatises, al-Kindi emphasizes the
importance of the intellect (aql) and contrasts it with matter.

He also discusses the One Truth, which is another name for God, and
states that it does not have any attributes, predicates or characteristics. This view is
consonant with the Mutazili declaration of the unity of God as being strictly
without attributes, and consequently al-Kindi has sometimes been deemed to be a
Mutazili by scholars.

Other aspects of his position include emphasis on the absolute unity of
God, his power  particularly as creator  and creation ex nihilo. The Eternal,
that is God, is not due to another; he has no cause and has neither genus nor species.
There is no before for the Eternal. The Eternal is unchanging, immutable and
imperishable. In human terms, death is the souls taking leave of the body, which it
employed during life. For al-Kindi, the intellect continues. Perhaps the soul is primarily
the locus of the intellect. He reiterated in his ethical treatise the idea that humans
must choose the world of the intellect over the material world (see §3).

Al-Kindi differs from the Hellenistic philosophical tradition primarily
in espousing the belief that the world was created ex nihilo. In Aristotelian metaphysics
the Prime Mover set the world in motion, but in the Hellenistic tradition, time and motion
are intrinsically linked. Matter set in motion is eternally existing, since it exists
before motion (and therefore before time). In this system, time is defined as the
extension of the series of movements. Thus time begins with movement. In al-Kindis
system, matter, time and movement are all finite, with a beginning and a cessation at some
future point. Other subjects that concern al-Kindi can be seen from his titles, including Fi
wahdaniya Allah wa tunahiy jirm al-alam (On the Unity of God and the
Limitation of the Body of the World), and Fi kammiya kutub Aristutalis wa ma yahtaj
ilahi fi tahsil al-falsafa (The Quantity of the Books of Aristotle and What is
Required for the Acquisition of Philosophy).

In his philosophical writings, al-Kindi does not so much direct
arguments to the concerns of religion as avoid them altogether, instead describing a
parallel universe of philosophy. He consistently tries to show that the pursuit of
philosophy is compatible with orthodox Islam. The mutakallimun had previously speculated
on questions about matter, atoms and substance, which he also considers. Another reason
for the claim that he was a Mutazili was his persecution by the Khalif
al-Mutawwakil, who instigated a reactionary policy against the Mutazili and a return
to traditionalism (see Ashariyya and Mutazila). Al-Kindi was caught in the
general net of the Khalifs anti-intellectualism; the Kindian emphasis is always on
rationalism, an attitude which the orthodox establishment of a revealed religion is bound
to find inimical.

Ethics

Al-Kindis ethics and practical philosophy are most discussed in a
treatise Fi al-hila li-daf al-ahzan (On the Art of Averting Sorrows),
of questionable authenticity. Fehmi Jadaane (1968) argues that al-Kindi was strongly
influenced by the Stoic tradition, particularly the thought of Epictetus, which was known
throughout the Islamic world at the time through contact with Syriac Christian scholars,
if not through specific texts. Epictetus emphasized the importance of freedom from the
world and human beings status as agents, who through their ultimate independence
were responsible for their own happiness and independent of others. His last logical step,
however, was that suicide was permissible if life was no longer worth living. This last
idea is not repeated in al-Kindi.

Like the writings of the Stoics, al-Kindis treatise, which is of
the consolation of philosophy type, exhorts readers to concentrate on the life
of the mind and the soul, not of the body (see Stoicism). Al-Kindi says that human beings
are what they truly are in the soul, not in the body. Again, on the futility of looking
for eternities in the visible world, he says that whoever wishes for what is not in nature
wishes for what does not exist. The reader is admonished that unhappiness follows such an
attitude. In this treatise, al-Kindi advocates maintaining an internal balance through the
mechanism of the individuals interior autonomy. If worldly property becomes a
concern and is then lost or damaged, this will upset an individuals mental
equilibrium. Stoic ideas about the ephemeral nature of earthly goods are recalled;
al-Kindi warns against attachment to favourite worldly goods, using an example from
Plutarchs On Moral Virtue. In that story, Nero receives a gift of a gorgeous,
elaborate crystal tent, with which he is obviously smitten. A philosopher who is present
in the crowd advises him that he has already been impoverished through his keen attachment
to this object. If Nero were to lose it, the philosopher says, he will suffer because it
is irreplaceable. Later when the rare object is lost at sea during transport, Nero is
devastated. Scholars have argued that this treatise appears to be a mélange of wisdom
literature from various Hellenistic sources, with no ideas that sound Kindian. Ibn
Miskawayh refers to the ideas of al-Kindi in his treatise on ethics, Tahdib
al-akhlaq.

Some ethical remarks are contained in other treatises. The virtues
discussed in the treatise on definitions are wisdom, courage and temperance. A reflection
of each virtue which exists in the soul is seen in the body. Virtue exists as a focal
point between two extremes. Bravery, for example, is both mental and physical; it is
midway between rashness and timidity.

Some reverberations of al-Kindis thought also continued in the
twelfth-century Christian Latin West, as certain of his treatises were translated into
Latin by the Scholastics, notably De intellectu (On the Intellect). In the thirteenth
century Giles of Rome criticized Alkindus with other philosophers in his work
Errores philosophorum (Errors of the Philosophers). Only a portion of al-Kindis work
survives, so judgment of him must necessarily be imperfect. However, al-Kindis
influence endured longer in the Western Islamic tradition than in the Eastern, as
reflected in the writings of the twelfth-century mystic Ibn al-Arabi. With al-Kindi,
who pursued reason against the background of revealed religion, begins the Islamic
philosophical tradition which continues with the works of Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd.

Gimaret, D. (1976) Cinq Épîtres (Five Treatises), Paris: Centre National de la
Recherche Scientifique. (An excellent French translation with commentary of five treatises
by al-Kindi. There are unfortunately very few English translations of al-Kindis
works.)

Klein-Franke, F. (1996) Al-Kindi, in S. H. Nasr and O. Leaman (eds) History
of Islamic Philosophy, London: Routledge, ch. 11, 16577. (Account of the role of
al-Kindi as the first Muslim philosopher, and in particular the links between his
philosophy and contemporary theology and understanding of Greek thought.)

Moosa, M. (1967) Al-Kindis Role in the Transmission of Greek Knowledge to
the Arabs, Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society 15 (1): 318. (Good
discussion of The Quantity of the Books of Aristotle.)